


Heavy is the Crown

by Anonymous



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Alec is the puppy, Angst, Best friends Hayden and Alec, But he doesn't mean anything by it, Differences in opinions on magic, Dissociation, Ektor is a big bi slut, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Kicked puppies, Lizard emotes, Panic Attacks, Time is a flat circle, cats doing cat things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 15:07:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16042937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: An unfathomable hell dimension gives way to the light of reality, but the party finds themselves far from home and in a time that's alien to them. After leaning just how far time had stretched since they first entered, Prince Alec most deal with the weight of what this means.It's probably trash but my party wanted fanfiction. And by party I mean me. You're getting it.





	Heavy is the Crown

**Author's Note:**

> It's a continuation of a scene that had happened in game, so it might be a little confusing for anyone who stumbles across this who doesn't have context. I'll try to add at least enough to give some idea of what's going on.

A few weeks. A few weeks he had been gone. No major controversy. But somehow that had somehow equated to seven thousand _years._ An impossible stretch of time, but not only did it appear possible, apparently he'd traveled it. 

So much had changed. He'd only gone to find his friend, insurance for himself so that his people would have a ruler that wouldn't let his stupidity get in the way. Since then he'd found a doorway to literal hell. Some of the worst trials his mind could imagine. Betrayal. But also new friends, people he knew he could trust through thick and thin. And perhaps the best of all, he found Hayden. The kingdom of Vaerland would be in good hands.

But...it didn't matter, did it? Not after thousands of years. If Rahona was right, Bjornstedd and Fjall went back to being enemies. Vaerland was a memory, if it was even that. All the work that all the previous Kings and Queens of his country went through to keep the peace, and it all fell. Because he wasn't there. Because--

"Tea."

Alec's head snapped up, suddenly in the hear and now. Animals played, obscured by the trees but still heard in the rustling of leaves and their songs in the air. Farther out were the mixed conversations of his companions and the metallic works of the warforged creatures that called this forest sanctuary. The person who spoke to him, Rahona, stood before Alec holding a cup that looked dwarfed in her hands. "What?"

"I promised tea, remember?" A reptilian eye regarded him, unblinking. It wasn't easy to tell the emotional state of a lizard person, but Alec still assumed it was with something like sympathy that she was looking at him. 

"Oh, yes. Thank you, Miss Rahona. I... That was pretty quick to brew, though." He cleared his throat and took the cup from her graciously.

"Again, only Rahona will suffice. Archdruid I may be, but I'm really not one to stand on airs." The scales around the beak of her mouth twitched. "And I'm not sure just how long, but you were standing there for more than a few minutes."

Alec nodded, briefly looking back at the caves he'd just finished exploring. The history of the world. The history of their failure. "Right. I'm sorry. My mind is just..."

"On bigger things?" She nodded in return. After all, it was her own cavern system that had revealed the consequence of his having embarked on his adventure. It was she who told him about the millennia since the fall of Vaerland. "I may not have been in that world as long as you were, but I still know what it's like to come back to a world that you don't recognize. I'll tell you more when you feel ready, but I think right now what you need most is friends."

"Agreed. I'll just..." He looked down at the tea in his hands for a moment.

"Take the cup with you," she waved him off. "I don't get many guests out here that aren't mechanical or an animal of some sort. It's almost like a novelty. Just don't steal it, and we'll be fine."

Alec took a step back. "I wouldn't--"

"Joking," she told him as she turned and walked off.

It didn't take very long to find the others. The encampment Rahona had made her home wasn't that large. In the day or so that had passed since they left the hell dimension and found themselves in her forest, they'd mostly stuck to the living quarters they were assigned. Indeed, the voices he'd heard earlier emanated from there. The dwarf woman Zyrna was asleep and cradled into the side of the much larger frame of the Amazon princess Doeraonestra, who preferred to be called Dory. Situated on his bedroll was the half-orc captain Haradan, who was playing absentmindedly with an orange tabby cat, Sandwich, by running a loose string attached to a clump of feathers across the ground. On a nearby bench were a pale human man and an older Tiefling, both dressed finer than their outdoor locale required.

"Look, I honestly can't get any clearer than what I've told you." The tiefling, Ektor, ran a hand through wild midnight blue hair. "I call out to the wind and rain what my intent is and shape it with the power inside me. Then I funnel the energy out through my body and into the spell I'm trying to cast."

"Yes, I understand that part, but how?" The human, Hayden, responded. "In Mordenkainen's _Liber Arcanum_ , he specifically indicates that abjuration spells require precise somatic components, otherwise the incantation in question would-"

"Look, forget about Mordenkainen's Book of Dead Languages or Bigby's Scrolls of Autoerotica for ten minutes," Ektor sighed. "I can tell you now that I haven't read a single one of them and have no clue how they say magic is supposed to work." He knocked on the bench between them and gestured into the air. "Magic is nature. It's _instinct._ So maybe stop trying to figure out how other people did it and figure out what's right for you."

Hayden huffed at the response and nodded. "Trust me, I've been hearing that my whole life from my family. Also sorcerers, if you were curious. I'm not so good at the instinct thing. Besides," he smiled, and even from the distance they were from Alec, be could see Hayden's classic self-depreciation run through it, "I was asking how _you_ do it."

"Then we'll figure it out," Ektor told him. "But we'll do it later. When less people are around. In the meantime, did you find out more about that crow statue I gave you?"

Hayden lit up and nodded. "Yes, I took it to Rahona. She said- oh, Alec, I didn't see you there!" 

Alec smiled and waved in response. "It's fine. Sounds like the two of you were making some kind of progress with your magic stuff?"

"Or something," Hayden agreed. "More like figuring out how to translate what we do to each other is harder than we thought."

"Oh, what we do to each other is _definitely_ hard," Ektor leered over the bench at Hayden before he stood up. It looked like Hayden was going to say something from the way he flailed at Ektor's words, but was cut off before he could say anything else. "There something you needed, Alec?"

Alec nodded, deciding to ignore whatever Ektor meant. Instead he looked to Hayden. "There is, but if you two are busy, then I can come back."

"We are _not_ ," Hayden stated quite firmly, blushing hard enough that his skin nearly matched his fiery red hair.

Ektor laughed and pulled away from the bench. "I'll see you two around, then." With that he left the two friends be. Alec took his spot as Hayden shook his head.

"He really likes to push buttons," Hayden murmured after Alec settled down.

"Oh, he's fine." Hayden frowned. "Really, he's fine," Alec reassured him.

"You're probably right. But enough about _that_ ," He said with a bit of disdain. "What did Rahona say about CRL?"

Alec looked around for a moment. It wasn't like anything he asked Rahona about was a secret to them. The warforged had enough in common with the spirit of the human spirit Alec had befriended, Carl, beyond just similar names that all of them were probably curious. But it still felt like gossip. He sighed.

"That I would have to ask CRL about whether he used to be Carl. There might be a way to reach out to his memories of before he was a robot, but he might not want to know." Hayden nodded. He chewed on his lip thoughtfully. 

"It's for the best. Magic like that's pretty tricky. Not even factoring in the moral side of the argument, going into someone's mind without their consent is prone to messing up spectacularly." 

"Yeah. And besides that..." Alec faltered, and the thoughtful frown on Hayden's face turned to concern.

"What is it?"

"We've been gone for a long time, Hayden." He tried to say more, but he couldn't get it beyond the lump that was forming in his throat.

"...How long is _long_ , exactly?" His inflection heightened at the end of the question and a finger curled into his hair, twining a lock around it tightly.

"It's..." he didn't want to say it. A large part of himself still wanted to deny it. The end of Vaerland, Hadar ruling the world beyond this forest. If he acknowledged it that meant all of it would be real.

Alec didn't know if he could live with it being real.

"Alec? Alec." Alec turned his face away from his friend. " _Alexander._ " It was the sharpness of tone that finally got Alec to turn his attention back to the conversation. It was rare for Hayden to snap, even rarer to snap at _him_ like that, and even with the weight of this new knowledge, he couldn't stand the thought of his best friend being angry with him. "How long?"

Still, he lowered his eyes as he answered with a weak "seven thousand years." Torm, he could feel the weight of his stare even without looking at him. He felt small. Smaller even than when his father had died and the weight of his responsibility as heir apparent came crashing down.

"That's... Are you sure?" Alec nodded, still refusing to look up at his friend. "Seven thousand...Gods. And Vaerland? Fjiall?" 

"I don't know about Fjiall. There was a war, though. The peace is gone." He inhaled wetly. When did he start crying? "Chaz took the throne and. And Vaerland is. It's--"  
It was about then that things seemed to get distant. The world opened up and closed in at the same time. Alec's vision felt like it was swimming he couldn't get what was happening he was too hot he couldn't-- "I can't _breathe._ "

"Oh, god." Arms around him, forcing him down he flailed out but they were back all dead Hadar coming in with Myra gone they can't possibly--

"Alec, come on. It's me. It's Hayden. Breathe for me. In through the nose, and out through the mouth. In through the-- there you go. Just keep breathing. It's going to be fine."

Eventually his awareness came back. His vision stopped swimming. He was somehow on the ground, but surrounded by faces. All of his friends that he'd made since leaving home. He looked up and realized that his head was in Hayden's lap. He sniffed and buried his face into his thigh, seeking out the comfort there.

"They're all dead," he murmured. For Hayden's benefit but mostly to himself. "They're gone, and we couldn't do anything to stop it."

"That wasn't your fault." There was something in Hayden's voice but after coming back, he was too tired to peg it. He just wanted to sleep.

"But it was, though. If I just _stayed home,_ then--"

"You don't know know what would have happened," Hayden cut him off. "You heard that demon." A flash of stars. A foul creature in a throne of a god prison. Gloating about how their disappearance meant the end of what they knew. "Hadar would have found a way to get us thrown in there, regardless. But we survived. We can prepare now." Alec sniffed and pulled himself up. Looked at all his friends, who knew the pain he was feeling now.

"We can," Alec agreed, wiping his face and turning to all of them. "We can't let this go on."

Hayden nodded, his smile bittersweet. "So what do we do?"

Alec stood, looking out north, to the territory ruled by Hadar. A whole world, suffering in ways that he didn't want to imagine, but had to if he wanted to save them. 

"We fight back."


End file.
